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think about up here by yourself, then?”
    “Redemption.”
    She nodded and then asked quietly, “Do you dream of it?”
    “No. I remember when I lost all hope of it.” She watched as his eyes grew distant while he watched the fire.

C hapter Six
    It was hot. Hotter than anything he’d ever felt before in his life. His mail chafed and burned his skin through his underthings, and the horse under him seemed to radiate even more heat into his body. The fortress stood above him, red-brown in the shimmering heat. Madness, he thought. Madness to attack such a great fortress with such a small army. But surely God wills it, and with God on our side defeat is not possible.
    Mathieu adjusted his shield and kissed the hilt of his sword. He’d been told that in there was a finger bone of the family saint, Bertrand, who had been killed in a flaming wheel of death for his piety. Surely that saint would protect him now, even if Mathieu were nothing but one of many bastard sons of a great and powerful man.
    The Saracen host in front of him writhed and leapt, crashing against the army of Christendom. The sound of metal clashing and horses screaming reached him long before the fighting did. He still put spurs to his steed to race headlong into battle, screaming for the righteousness of the cause.
    “Dieu le veut!” The battle cry touched him to the very core, to the depths of his soul. To regain the Holy Land from the infidel would mean everything, and would bring salvation to sinners even as egregious as Mathieu, erasing the stain of his birth. Gaining his fortune and with that, the hand of Yvette, would only add to his glory.
    He had been told that dying while fighting for the Holy Land was a sure path to Heaven, had even been shriven this morning. Somehow that thought did not comfort him when the lance tore through his mail, driving the rings deep into his flesh and ripping him open. It certainly didn’t comfort him when his horse then floundered under him, falling and pinning him as the battle raged on and over and around him.
    After a time, time flowed strangely and the fighting moved elsewhere, leaving Mathieu alone to face his death. The carrion birds fluttered around him, unconcerned at his flailing attempts to keep them away. There was much to feast on here, and soon he would be dead. After a while he didn’t even have the strength to whisper prayers through his parched and bleeding lips. Not even the smell of death and corruption reached him.
    The knight appeared before him as he gasped in pain, lungs filled with fire and dust. The strange knight’s armor was a lurid red, his horse black as night with hooves of fire. A squire followed on a mule close behind, a strange old man with empty eyes and a rusted iron chain of four long, curved links welded around his neck. He didn’t notice at first that the old man was naked.
    “Ah,” said the knight. “I felt you here and wondered if you would live long enough for me to find you.”
    Mathieu could only shake his head weakly.
    “Of course you don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” The knight took off his helm and beamed down at the dying Mathieu. Golden hair haloed a beautiful visage that was only enhanced by piercing blue eyes.
    “An angel,” Mathieu croaked through blistered lips as he looked up at the knight. “You’re an angel come to take me to Heaven.”
    “Something like that. But not quite.” The knight smirked and did something with his hands that Mathieu could not follow for the darkness rushing in around him.

C hapter Seven
    “I need your help.” Jenn cleared her throat and spoke again since it seemed that he was lost in his own thoughts. “I need your help.”
    “No.” He didn’t even look up at her; he was lost in the fire.
    “You don’t even know what I want.” She scowled despite her best effort to keep her face blank.
    “I know that I can’t leave this place.” He sighed. “The world has too much pain, too much hurt for me to go